SC to hear plea to save Indian nurse on death row in Yemen

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear a plea seeking a direction to the Centre to use diplomatic channels to save an Indian nurse facing execution for murder in Yemen on July 16.

A bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Joymalya Bagchi posted the hearing on July 14 before a regular bench after advocate Subhash Chandran KR said diplomatic channels need to be explored at the earliest.

Senior advocate Ragenth Basant and Chandran submitted that payment of blood money to the family of the deceased permissible under Sharia law can be explored.

The family of the deceased may pardon the Kerala nurse if blood money is paid, Basant submitted.

The bench asked Chandran, who is the advocate on record in the case, to serve the copy of the petition to the Attorney General and sought his assistance.

“Considering the nature and urgency of the case, we request the Union of India/Central Government to apprise this Court through the Attorney General of India as to the steps taken in the case by the Government of India, if any,” the bench’s order said.

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Indian nurse Nimisha Priya to be executed in Yemen on July 16

Nimisha Priya, 38, a nurse from Palakkad district of Kerala, was convicted of murdering her Yemeni business partner in 2017. She was sentenced to death in 2020, and her final appeal was rejected in 2023.

She is currently imprisoned in a jail in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen.

The plea has been filed by an organisation “Save Nimisha Priya – International Action Council” which extends legal support to assist Nimishapriya.

The plea cited a media report that stated that the tentative date for execution of Nimishapriya has been fixed as July 16 by the Yemeni administration.

“In 2015, Nimishapriya joined hands with Talal Abdo Mahdi (Yemen national) to set up her own clinic in Yemen’s capital city Sana’a. She sought Mahdi’s support because, under Yemen law, only nationals are allowed to set up clinics and business firms,” the plea said, narrating the sequence of events.

It said in 2015 Mahdi accompanied Nimishapriya to Kerala when she came on a month-long holiday.

“During the visit, he stole a wedding photograph of Nishapriya, which he later manipulated to claim that he was married to her. After she started the clinic, Mahadi started cornering all the revenue. He became hostile when Nimisha questioned him about the embezzlement. He later threatened her, forged documents to claim that she married him as per his religion and brutally tortured her,” the plea claimed.

It further claimed that the harassment then became to physical torture and Mahdi seized her passport.

“This was done to ensure that she would not leave Yemen without his permission. He tortured her under the influence of drugs. He threatened her at gunpoint several times. He took all the money from the clinic and her ornaments…,” it said.

The plea further said that in July 2017, Nimishapriya took the help of a warden of a jail located near her clinic, where Mahdi had been jailed previously under various charges.

“The warden suggested that she should try to sedate him and then convince him to give her passport. However, sedation did not affect Mahdi, who was a substance abuser. She tried sedating him again, using a stronger sedative to retrieve her passport but he died within a few minutes due to drug overdose,” it said.

The plea said Nimishapriya was sentenced to death by a Yemani trial court and in fact, she is a ‘victim of war’ as she did not get a proper legal defense during those days of serious civil war in Yemen.

“She was forced to sign many confessional documents in the local language (Arabic), which led to her capital punishment. After being sentenced by a trial court in 2020, she filed appeals against the death penalty in appellate courts which were also dismissed by the first appellate court as well as the Supreme Judicial Council of Yemen,” it said.

The plea continued, “Now, the only way for her to escape from the gallows is to gain pardon from the family of the deceased by paying blood money to the family in accordance with law of the land (Shariah Law).”

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